Nine well-meaning English agents struggled through various disguises and meeting signals to join up electronically via a Verizon cell tower in Southwest London. Their clandestine voices could be heard over the double-decker buses in the vicinity:
Ken – The author MacIntyre descended from royalty: 14th King’s
Hussars and his grandmother was a daughter of a Viscount.
He attended King’s College – Cambridge and graduated in 1988.
Why write another version when Oleg published the original history (Next Step –
Execution) in 1995? This was Oleg’s second book. He published his first in 1994.
It appears MacIntyre had access to MI-6 files
Tom – MacIntyre over-dramatized several things. For example, How could the
Russians believe the West was planning to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike?
Jack- I served 20 years in intelligence. SAC -1983 before Able Archer We
intercepted lots of chatter in military channels regarding concerns about
provocation and intentions.
Dick – I noticed how Dick – I noticed how many times Oleg mentioned the corruption, ineptitude and
incompetence by Soviet spies.
Jack – I was amazed how many British politicians were Soviet spies and
sympathizers
Tom: I liked the book, It was a page turner and well written, especially for a nonfiction book.
Dick: I was bothered by the overkill on information and troubling diversion from
the plot. It put me to sleep.
Charlie: I liked that he stuck to the facts and did not introduce any perceived
thoughts of others.
Bob Woods: I have a Moscow story. I stayed in a hotel in Moscow in a room that a prior
guest thought was bugged. He tore apart the room looking for bugging devices.
When he removed a brass plate on the floor, the chandelier in the room below his
fell down.
Dick: His research was very impressive. I have done research and his was very
competent.
Charlie: the book relied upon interviews and Oleg’s published book. There was
not access to files.
Jack: He had 100 hours of interviews with Oleg. It was not until the 1970’s that
the British admitted the existence of MI-6.
Bob Simon: I thought the two wives were heroines. Changing the baby and offering the
dogs crisps that threw the dogs off Oleg’s scent was brilliant.
Tom: I was amazed that they used all the normal spy techniques one reads about
in spy books, such as chewing gum on a lamp post, strolling eating a Mars bar with a Harrod’s shopping bag.
Dick: Did MacIntyre over-glorify Gordievsky?
Ken: He was an important spy. I am amazed it took from 1995 to now for this
book to be published.
Charlie: He was the right guy at the right time. It was the end of the Soviet era,
the emergence of Gorbachev.
Jack: Oleg was also a hero because he was motivated by idealism and not money.
The book was just as suspenseful as fiction.
I was amazed he hitched to a bar at the Russian border to get a beer while waiting
for the escape team.
The Brits have avoided publishing his name. I looked for recent articles on
Gordiesky and found only one.
Bob Simon: Ken sent an article on three Russian traitor spies from the Smithsonian that
describes Gordievsky’s defiltration from Russia.
Ken: I was amazed that the British modified the drive shaft
of a Land Rover to pass through the door so the hump could be made into a
compartment to hide a person.
Bob Simon: The article also suggests that there are other moles because the events that
led to Gordievsky’s defiltration and the other Russian mole’s apprehension occurred
in the timeline between Aldrich Ames' first contact with the Russians in April and
his big document dump in May. Western intelligence is not sure the Russians got
the incriminating evidence from Ames.
The article speculates that there may be other American or British moles.
Jack: There are other issues besides moles.
For example, the NSA contracts for lots of services and that creates concerns about
motivations, like Snowden’s disclosures.
Charlie: ... or with electronic surveillance How do you know how information is
obtained?
Jack: I retired from intelligence 37 years ago at the age of 42. In the signal corps
we did not mix with Embassy staff.
Bob Woods: This was a manual for espionage, very detailed.
Karl: What a story!
The level of detail and the clarity of the writing are impressive. I’d wondered whether the amount of
detail was necessary to convincingly tell the story of Gordievsky and the relevant snippets on Ames or
whether the tale could have been told more crisply by leaving some of them out. After some thought,
I’d decided that, while maybe it could, the book is just fine as written. The writing is clear and not overly
descriptive. The flow and pacing are good. The story is laid out in a logical manner and not at all
confusing.
What gives this book a special place in the espionage archives of the cold war is the inclusion
of the implications of the information provided by Gordievsky, not just the information itself.
Absolutely fascinating story that should most definitely have been told. And it is told well. The impact
that Oleg Gordievsky had on helping the world through the Cold War period should be better known.
Thanks to this book, it can be. A flat out terrific A
Sidebar: I started reading The Spy and the Traitor about
three or four days after finishing The Man who Played with Fire by Jan Stocklassa. That book is about the investigation
of the 1986 street corner assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme -- a case that was just officially closed
last week after 34+ years with no conclusion. By comparison, that book is poorly constructed, confusing in places and not
well crafted. Of course, it was written in Swedish and translated to English. So, while Macintyre's book is way better, the
Stocklassa book is just as fascinating. Ollie North, Bill Casey, and P W Botha make small cameo appearances. There's
also Apartheid, Iran Contra, Kurdish separatists, and number of right wing nuts, a movie star, gun runners, an ammunition
manufacturer. a German car dealer, and more. There's the extensive notes of Illustrator/ journalist/author Stieg Larsson
(of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame). And, the story takes place in Sweden, England, Northern Cyprus, South Africa,
the US, and more. For club members who enjoyed this month's book and are willing to read another fascinating
tale, though not one that's especially well written, it's a candidate. I'm not going to use if for my December choice because I
can already hear the complaints about there being too many characters, holes in the logic, and two somewhat conflicting
objectives of the author -- all of which would be legitimate -- but it's worth a mention, nevertheless, just because the story is
so interesting.
Jack: An incredible, fascinating and well written story. I found it fairly easy to follow in spite of the long list of players and their interrelationships. It was a real page turner for me. I give it an A
Charlie: Excellent, perfect non-fiction, well researched. A
Dick: Grade: A-.
Tom: Incredible story. Verging on unbelievable.
What was the sequence of events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
Strategic arms programs. SDI and neutral particle beam weapons
This story is part of a bigger story. A great story, adequately written. Grade: A
Keith: was unable to obtain the book from the library so did not grade the book.
Bob Woods: Fascinating, well organized, good chronological order, good pictures of
how intel works.
A personal story – I worked with a team on a top secret project that made a
breakthrough that the Soviets copied in one year. Grade: A
Bob Simon: I like its authenticity. Grade: A
Ken: this was a page turner for me both from history and spying
Grade: solid A
Rob: See attached review Grade: A-
...and from far outside the Central Committee:
I look forward to Ken’s report on how Ben Macintyre got into this project. Since Oleg had
already written his story, one would think there was not much more to relate. What inspired
Macintyre to essentially start over – and was his book wildly more successful than Oleg’s?
I had numerous thoughts while reading this book. One recurring ‘vision’ was “Spy vs Spy” in the
old Mad comic books. Another was, “Hey, the author is giving away all the tricks – now it will be
so much harder for our next exfiltration to succeed. Shouldn’t this account remain classified?”
I don’t know if I would have ever known the name Oleg Gordievsky if Ken had not
selected this book. I’m sure it must have been in the news at one time; but I mainly only
remember Aldrich Ames (never heard him referred to as “Rick”) as being a turncoat who
accounted for the deaths of many of ‘our’ agents in Russia. Until this book I never realized how cold-blooded Ames did it just for the money.
This is another of those true stories that I always wonder if it would be told at all if it were not
successful, if it did not have a happy ending. Say, for example, when Oleg was called back to
Moscow that he just disappeared, never to be heard from again – would this book have been
written anyway?
I was most impressed with the way Macintyre told the story – it was well crafted. I didn’t know
PIMLICO was going to be used until it was – in fact, when Oleg was assigned to the London
KGB group, I thought, “Well, now it will be easy to get him ‘out’.” And I was never sure until it
happened if the kids and Leila were going along or not.
There were many Russian names, many characters, but this did not hinder me from following
the story or appreciating the action. I was amazed at the intricacy of signals such as an orange
peel left under a park bench. Wow, I will never look at litter the same way again! Perhaps I will
clean up the trash outside to help foil some devious Russian plot in Four Hills Village.
I will always want to hear how Oleg’s life is going – is he depressed? Lonely? Lady friends? Keeping busy with
lectures? Is he on Facebook? Any second thoughts? I wonder if his story provides some of
those follow-on details, at least as far as 2015.
Good job of telling a complex, amazing story: A
- Mike
Mike, your comments sent me to the Web to try and figure out why
Macyntyre needed to write his book. Although Oleg’s book, titled “Next Step Execution: The
Autobiography of Oleg Gordievsky”, was first published in 1995 and had decent Amazon reviews, it
only had 168 reader reviews whereas Macintyre’s 2018 book had 2413 reader reviews in a much
shorter lifetime so Oleg’s book was not much of a commercial success.
I tried to find what
Macintyre added to the story and, according to interviews, Macintyre said he had substantially
more access to the case workers and important players in the CIA, MI-6 and KGB. Because these
sources all had signed Official Secrets Acts and similar documents, he said that talking to him was
illegal and they shouldn’t have done it. Perhaps it was easier to get them to talk since more than
20 years had passed since Oleg’s book was published.
Oleg wrote a second book in 1994 titled Comrade Kryuchkoy’s Instructions: Top Secret Files on
KGB Foreign Operations 1975-1985. It elicited even fewer reader reviews (4) on Amazon and
therefore wasn’t a big seller.
- Ken
